Поделки из спичек: просто и увлекательно. Анна Зайцева

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      CHAPTER ONE

      THEY came for her in the dead of night, while the camp was silent but for the rustle of palm leaves on the cool night air and the snort of camels dreaming of desert caravans long since travelled. She was not afraid when she heard the zip of the blade through the wall of the tent. She was not even afraid when a man dressed all in black, his face covered by a mask tied behind his head and with only slits for his eyes, stepped inside, even though his height and the width of his shoulders were enough to steal her breath away and cause her pulse to trip.

      Instead it was relief that flooded her veins and brought her close to tears, relief that the rescue she had prayed and hoped so desperately for had finally arrived.

      ‘I knew you would come for me,’ she whispered as she slid fully dressed out of bed to meet him, almost tripping over her slippers in her rush to get away. She swallowed back a sob, knowing what she was escaping, knowing how close she had come. But at last she would be safe. There was no need to be afraid.

      But when the hand clamped hard over her mouth to silence her, and she felt herself pulled roughly against his hard, muscular body, there was no denying her sudden jag of fear.

      ‘Do not utter another word, Princess,’ the man hissed into her ear as he dipped his head to hers. ‘Or it may be your last.’

      She stiffened even as she accepted the indignity, for she had been raised to accept no stranger’s touch. But she had little choice now, with his arm like a steel band around her waist, the fingers of one large hand splayed from her chest to her belly and the palm of his other hand plastered hard across her mouth so that she could all but taste his heated flesh.

      Unnecessarily close.

       Unnecessarily possessive.

      Every breath she took contained his scent, a blend of horseflesh and leather, of shifting sands and desert air, all laced with a warm, musky scent that wormed its way into all the places he touched her and beyond. Those places burned with heat until unnecessarily possessive became unnecessarily intimate, and some innate sense of survival pounded out a message in her heartbeat, warning her that perhaps she was not as safe as she had supposed.

      Something inside her rebelled. Foolish man! He might be here to rescue her but hadn’t she been ready and waiting? Did he imagine she had prayed for rescue only to scream or run and risk her chances of escape?

      She was sick of being manhandled and treated like a prize, first by Mustafa’s goons and now by her own father’s. She was a princess of Jemeya, after all. How dared this man handle her like some common sack of melons he might have picked up at the market?

      He shifted and she squirmed, hoping to take advantage of his sudden stillness while his focus seemed else-where, but there was no escape. The iron band simply pulled her tighter against the hard wall of his body, his fingers tightening on her flesh, punching the air from her lungs. She gasped, her lips parting, and felt one long finger intrude between her lips.

      Shock turned to panic as she tasted his flesh in her mouth.

      She felt invaded. She felt violated with the intimacy of the act.

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